63rd Street gets $50 million in loans for revitalization

Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the announcement of Southwest Corridor Collaborative.

The city of Chicago, three neighborhood groups and a nonprofit hope that $50 million in loans, made over 10 years, will revitalize retail and other economic engines on 63rd Street, from Cottage Grove Avenue to Pulaski Road.

The partnership, announced Nov. 3, includes the city, Greater Auburn-Gresham Development, Southwest Organizing Project, Teamwork Englewood and LISC Chicago, the local arm of national Local Initiatives Support, based in New York.

The announcement of the collaboration was made in Englewood, just north of the neighborhood's new Whole Foods Market. The store “gives us the unique opportunity to double down on historic progress we are making in an area and build on it to revitalize entire neighborhoods,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a release announcing the collaborative.

63rd Street was once the city's second-busiest retail corridor, second only to downtown, said Meghan Harte, executive director of LISC Chicago. “If you talk to anyone, regardless of race or where they live, everyone remembers 63rd Street as the place for food, clothing and entertainment,” Harte said, noting that the street, from Halsted Street west, once housed 200 retail businesses.

In Auburn Gresham, the unemployment rate is 27.8 percent and the homeownership rate 39 percent. In Englewood and West Englewood, it's 36.4 percent and 27.1 percent, respectively. In Southwest Chicago, also known as Chicago Lawn, the unemployment rate is 16 percent and homeownership, 58 percent.

Job creation is one big reason to revitalize the street, Harte said.

She said the collaborating parties are forming a vision for the street, which could include a major employer, say a call center, in addition to retail, restaurants and entertainment. She expects planning to take three to six months, then investments will begin. The goal is to have two or three “catalytic” investments started, with financing in place, by 2018.

“If you talk to anybody, 10 years is ambitious,” Harte said, noting that 15 to 20 years is a more typical time frame for major economic revitalization.

The partnership is “unprecedented,” she said. “This is three communities coming together with the city to do planning in a coordinated way.”

The collaboration grew out of LISC Chicago's Quality-of-life Planning initiative among Englewood, Auburn Gresham and Chicago Southwest. The initial planning started 10 years ago and is now in its second iteration. “As we were doing the planning, it was clear they wanted to go deeper into economic development,” Harte said. 63rd Street connects the three neighborhoods.

The national LISC will make $50 million in loans available over the next 10 years, and Community Investment will commit $10 million to housing financing. LISC loans will support predevelopment and planning efforts. “We incubate,” Harte said, adding that loans from LISC are paid off by the time construction gets underway.

Other partners include PrivateBank, Urban Partnership Bank, Cook County Land Bank, National Equity Fund, U.S. Bank, World Business Chicago and Comcast. Chicago Cares, a nonprofit focused on volunteer work, will bring its volunteer network to the area, Harte said.